Michael Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge as a Work of Alchemy in the Jungian Sense

A climactic moment appears in Michael Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge when he describes the modern predicament of humanity as a second ejection from paradise triggered by the uneasy discovery that our knowledge cannot be justified objectively. Polanyi’s philosophy is a response to the cataclysmic consequences of this second fall from grace. It seeks to establish a “balance of mind” that yields neither to the Scylla of objectivism nor the Charybdis of nihilism. Such themes are reminiscent of Jungian psychology and the process of individuation, yet there is no evidence that Polanyi appreciated this. That he nevertheless employs metaphors and ideas suggestive of the psychical transformations recorded by alchemists is telling. It raises the possibility that while his work is evidently concerned with epistemology, it is, at another level, a highly sophisticated depiction of psychological growth—both for Polanyi, and for anyone who accepts his invitation to join the opus.

TRANSDISCIPLINARITY THEORY THROUGH PLATO PHILOSOPHY, TAOISM, ALCHEMICAL TRADITION AND JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Transdisciplinary is a paradigm based on the integration and balance of opposite points of view (dualities). This paper methodology involves transdisciplinarity applied to problem solutions, mainly from 1) Plato philosophy; 2) Taoist principle of duality Yin Yang, 3) Jungian psychology, so connected to modern physics and 4) Weil, Leloup and Crema psychological vision of holistic transdisciplinarity. Our findings in this regard involves Figure 11 for Jungian functions and Figure 12 model for problem solving through duality plus four elements. The objective is to create a comprehensive understanding of reality through Plato and Taoist philosophies, Alchemical tradition and Jungian psychology improved by the MBTI system, as tools for problem solving. Understanding the psychological types types to comprehend on how to achieve the best of each one, due to their innate strengths and capacities, so that a synergy of results can be created within the relationships. The MBTI serves both i) for self-knowledge, to make his own self-management on a day-to-day life, and ii) to understand how other people work psychologically, so that a synergy can be created in the process of relationships. The applied transdisciplinary approach is based on the principles of i) duality – interaction and integration of opposites, specially the analytical and synthetic methods and ii) four elements - rationality, feasibility, reasonableness and meaning. However, it is not a simplistic or a magical-vitalistic approach as it may seem to rationalists at first, as far as modern physics is concerned. The holistic view of reality, including holology (the study of the whole) and holopraxis (the praxis of the whole) can´t be confused with political ideology, something that happens very frequently to scientificists, who consider themselves "exempt" and “impartial”. Finally, the core idea is to promote transformation of the culture and personal behavior, connected to reasonableness and meaning, emotional and intuitive intelligences, mainly because of psychological sustainability and mental health.

Archetypal Posturing of Soyinka’s Stylistic Modes in the Trials of Brother Jero

Soyinka’s deep immersion in mythology coupled with his stylistic modes in the portraiture of the archetypal trickster hero, as utilized in some of his comic plays, demonstrate a genius whose creative works anchor both the collective universal literary tradition and a domesticated form that defines his uniqueness. Drawing interpretive insights from Frye’s archetypal criticism and the Jungian psychology, this essay examines how Soyinka appropriates the archetypal figure as a monumental image in the play, The Trials of Brother Jero, and how his stylistic choices in the handling of the hero craft a new psycho-social role of picaresque mythology.

Babel, a Neverending Story? Language and Fantasy Identities

"The end of the 19th century brought a major change in regards to humanity’s relationship with divinity and with the idea of creation. According to Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘God is dead’, so no one holds the supreme authority upon the creation act anymore. As a result, man himself began to create fictional worlds through logos, in order to fill the void left by the disappearance of divinity. Among the many methods that explain the generative process of these worlds there is the archetypal one from the Jungian psychology, the relational one from reader-response theories and the ‘chaotic’, theoretically objective one, based on hazard theories. Starting from here, this essay will try to analyze comparatively Michael Ende’s novel, The Neverending Story, and Jorge Luis Borges’ short story, The Library of Babel, with the purpose of exploring the contrast that is prefigured – at a structural, interpretive and text-reader relationship level – between the unconscious and the mechanical patterns of creating new worlds."

Psychotherapy for end times

The broken connections between us and nature have left us feeling homeless in a world not only imperiled by multiple ecological crises and their political, economic, medical and social consequences, but also orphaned by the increasing turn to the allures of the digital world with its loss of place and embodied presence. In this context, this essay proposes that psychotherapy can be a place for homecoming in a fractured world. Exploring the key role of the grieving process in homecoming, I draw on my work in Jungian psychology, phenomenology, poetry and storytelling to show that our engaged, embodied presence with nature can re-mind us of the miracles in the mundane, the extraordinary in the ordinary, and can open our hearts to the wonder, mystery, beauty and sacred dimensions of human life.